


Exchange Kisses for Passwords

by Siria



Series: Nantucket AU [72]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-07
Updated: 2008-05-07
Packaged: 2017-10-03 20:24:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They arrange to meet with their bank manager at ten on Wednesday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exchange Kisses for Passwords

**Author's Note:**

> For Cate. Thanks to Jenn for betaing.

They arrange to meet with their bank manager at ten on Wednesday. It's the first step in making certain one of the many things that they've been taking for granted—adding Rodney's name to the mortgage, and to the title deeds of their little grey house.

In the days beforehand, Rodney watches John, and sees that it's not that he gets _nervous_, exactly. But each time Rodney sees him—heading out for an early morning run with Cash; curled up in his favourite armchair reading the _Times_; devouring a bowl of Cheerios—John seems a little more distant, a little more reserved. It's as if he's preoccupied with all the obstacles the letter of the law could hold for them, rather than on the inevitability of the two of them together, their universal constants; and when John worries, Rodney frets.

By Wednesday morning, every line of John's body is unnaturally tense next to Rodney's under the duvet, and he moves stiffly when he gets out of bed. He foregoes breakfast, and when he starts to get ready, Rodney wonders if there's still some part of John that feels as if he's playing dress up in his father's clothes; some nagging part of him that thinks that if he doesn't get this just right, his mother will come along to straighten his tie and pat him on the cheek and say, in her carefully cultivated Southern diction, _Johnny, just leave it to the grown-ups._

So John does dress up, putting on each layer with careful deliberation: a well-cut grey suit that's hardly ever been worn; a pale grey dress shirt; a sober tie and sensible, highly polished shoes. By the time John's fastening his cuff links, he looks very little like the man Rodney's met down on the beach so many mornings ago, and Rodney isn't glad of it.

John finishes, and turns to look at himself in the mirror. Rodney shrugs into his own jacket and watches John watch himself; there's a twist to John's mouth that he can't quite read, though perhaps it's anxiety and anger all at once. John's combed his hair down to lie flat, a thick, dark fringe of it flopping down into his eyes, and he's shaved so carefully and so close that even that thumbprint-sized patch of stubble just under his right jaw-line is gone, the one that he normally manages to miss. He's wearing that expensive after-shave he was given as a Christmas present from a neighbour one year, accepted then with no doubt dubious politeness, and which he'd always professed to hate; the smell of it makes Rodney wrinkle his nose.

A slight shrug at his own reflection, and John's ready to go. "C'mon," he mumbles, jerking a thumb at the clock ticking quietly on the bedside table, "We're gonna be late."

Rodney sighs, and doesn't head for the door; instead, he takes two steps over so that he's standing right in John's space, but not quite touching him. Close enough that he knows it's got to be distracting John, making him a little uncomfortable, and close enough that John has to tilt and duck his head a little so that he can look at Rodney. Against his mouth, Rodney can feel how quickly and lightly John is breathing; he doesn't look perceptibly panicked, Rodney thinks, not noticeably nervous, but all the signs are there.

"Hey," Rodney says softly, then "_Hey_," again, when that makes John's mouth twitch, like there's something he knows he should say, but he's not quite sure what. Rodney tilts his head up just enough so that his mouth touches John's, and his kiss is very slow, and very gentle, and very kind; he reaches up with one hand so that he can stroke his thumb over fine-grained skin, recalling by sense-memory where that perfectly shaped patch of stubble used to be. It's a kiss for sunlit mornings, just like this one, and by the time he pulls away, John's leaning into him unconsciously, chasing his mouth. Rodney smiles. "Hey," he says again, and he's happy to see John's mouth quirking up a little in recognition of who they are, of what this means.

"I know," John says, "I know, I just—"

"No," Rodney cuts him off, tone utterly serious for all that it still contains all the warmth John's ever kindled in him. "It'll be fine. Just— Like this."

He leans in and kisses John again; and though his kiss is still kind, it's born of a different generosity, the kind that gives you everything all at once and trusts in your ability to accept it. It's hot and wet, deep enough that it shakes even the solidity of Rodney's bones; makes him nip at the ripe curve of John's lower lip just so that he can pass on that trembling sense of some greater truth, that feeling that John's always been the only one strong enough to hold Rodney up. His palms curve around the too-smooth planes of John's cheeks, fingertips playing along lines left by laughter and weariness, and Rodney's ears echo with the pulse of his own blood, and with the sound of John's breathing, turned suddenly harsh and hitching.

When the kiss subsides, John's pupils are dark and blown, the thinnest sliver of hazel surrounding them, and his cheeks are flushed. "Well," Rodney says primly, smugly satisfied with his work, while he smoothes John's now ruffled bangs back into something approaching order, "If I were a bank manager, I'd totally give you a mortgage, the hell with the credit crunch."

John snorts at him, but Rodney waggles his eyebrows. "Ask me right? And I could totally get you a, uh, _personal_ loan."

"I can repay that with interest, right?" John says, sneaking in a not-so-subtle grope of Rodney's ass, and it's Rodney's turn to roll his eyes, and to stop himself from pushing back into John's touch.

"Yes, yes, what fun we can have with innuendo," he says. "Now come on, shoo, go, before I change my mind and decide I'd prefer to go live in that condo in Barbados, after all. Go!" He points at the door when John opens his mouth to protest—no doubt he wants to go through what Rodney is (not) to say when they get to the bank, one last time—but Rodney is intrigued to find out that a very decisive finger-pointing is enough to make John slink out of the room like a shame-faced Cash.

Outside, Rodney climbs into the passenger seat of the Wagoneer. John still looks a little nervous, and he's biting at his lower lip, as if the nagging worry at the back of his mind is persisting, the irrational thing that whispers that there's someone out there who could wrest their home away from them, from _Rodney_ at his most determined. But there's colour back in his cheeks now, his hair has regained something of its usual wild attitude, and unbeknownst to John, Rodney's ensured that the back of his shirt has been rumpled by wandering hands and pulled out of the back of his pants, just a little. He looks so much more his usual self, less _Sheppard_ and more _John_, that it makes something in Rodney's chest unclench to look at him.

Rodney represses a satisfied grin at a job well done, and gets down to the serious business of bitching about interest rates. John tunes the radio to a station that plays something crackling and country, and answers Rodney with the deadpan placidity that's his way of playing with him. All the way to the bank, Rodney rubs thumb against forefinger, as if to remember the feeling of smooth, warm skin against his fingertips, as if to carry with him the promise of stubble.


End file.
